A site for residents of Prince's Ward, SE11, in the London Borough of Lambeth. Check for updates from your Labour Action Team's campaigning, local information, and meetings.

Thursday, 18 October 2012

Update from this week's KOV neighbourhood forum

Community groups and residents from across Kennington, Oval and Vauxhall were represented at Tuesday's KOV Forum meeting.

There was good news for residents of the Wincott Street area from the West London Mission charity, who own the St Luke's hostel at the corner with Gilbert Road.

Over the past six months the building has been the temporary home to a hostel from Waterloo, and West London Mission acknowledged and apologised for the fact that some of the very challenging residents have caused problems and behaved in an antisocial way. That hostel will be returning to Waterloo in two weeks' time. Over the next few months the West London Mission will be consulting on a future use for the building, which promises to be far less disruptive to residents. Their favoured option is a convalescence centre for homeless people recovering from operations - which should allow them to recover from hospital treatment properly and prevent readmissions to hospitals.

The majority of the meeting was devoted to a presentation on the Vauxhall Supplementary Planning Document - the key planning policy for the future of Vauxhall. The Council is currently consulting on the policy document - the deadline for representations is 26 November. The plan is that the policy should be in place by January, so it can guide planning applications for new developments which are racing forward as part of the VNEB regeneration. The latest version of the SPD received a pretty positive response from people at the meeting - in particular most residents are pleased that the Council has an ambitious plan to transform Vauxhall Cross from a inhospitable gyratory system into a thriving town centre which is pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists.